Hallways in the Night by R.C. O'Leary

The career of the home run king, Remo Centrella, is starting to decline a bit so he starts looking for a little help using the breakfast of champions . . . steroids. And they seem to be working, but he has a little trouble with 'roid rage. But the team and ownership are willing to look the other way as long as he is producing. This hitting-horndog also has an eye for the ladies and his current fling is none other than the team owner's wife. 

Driving erratically around in his Porsche BIG STK44, Remo and his latest lady jet past a detective coming off a stakeout in Atlanta's worst ward and the cop heads off in pursuit. When Remo gets cornered, his rage boils over and tries to run the cop over. Bad goes to worse and Remo starts to beat the crap out of Dave Mackno who, in a last ditch effort, fires on Remo killing him. 

Being a potentially brutal political hot potato, the Atlanta IA division investigates this to the n'th degree and exonerates Mackno. Problem is the DA has other ideas (political ideas included) and brings charges, beginning the trial of the century. Mackno goes out and hires the biggest name defense attorney. Let the real games begin.

I was approached by O'Leary because of a Duke University connection; he from Duke Law, me at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. He found out about MRB and asked for a review of his self-published first effort. There have been some pretty impressive debuts from legal authors like Grisham and Turow. But in each case, those weren't as much about the law as they were about the mob or some social injustice. HITN, as the author refers to his book, is about the law, with a little racial politics thrown in. From the investigation to the pre-trial activities then to the actual trial and jury room, the setting and dialogue sings with (at least to me) pure authenticity. 'They' say to write about what you know, and from the way the courtroom scenes crackle one would have to assume O'Leary has been on the inside of a criminal trial or two in his time. And at the end, he deftly sets us up part 2.

And I hope he sends us his next effort. I think that this guy's got some promise.

Find the book at RCOLeary.com.

ECD